This report is focused around Lost and Found data using the intakes and outcomes data received for 2019 and 2020. Its goal is to reflect everything we could learn about L&F from the available data and highlight things that would be useful to show but some/all data required for them are missing.

Report Structure

  1. KPIs: data points that indicate how good the shelter is doing on on L&F. They have numeric goals associated with them.
  2. Supporting data: data points that aren’t a goal themselves but serve as a proxy for improving a goal. For example, the method of RTH is not a performance indicator, but it helps identifying how RTHs take place. The number of strays found per ZIP code is not a metric to improve, but it shows where most strays are coming from to guide resource allocation.
  3. Data notes: the state of the data received from the shelter, highlighting missing pieces and potential areas for improvement.

Scroll down or use the table of contents on the left to navigate throughout the document. Most sections contain multiple tabs showing different facets of a data type. Most plots are interactive, meaning they include tooltips and allow hiding and showing parts and zooming in and out. If something went wrong, look for the house icon in the top right corner of each figure to reset.

KPIs

Yearly RTH Rates by Species

This section provides an overview of the RTH rate per year divided by species. RTH Rate is calculated as the portion of returned animals that came in as strays out of stray animals. Normally, we also exclude neonate cats, but age group was not easily available in the data supplied.

Overall RTH Rate

This table covers all strays and RTHs. For both cats and dogs, these rates are extremely high compared to other HASS shelters.

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 965 84 0.09
Cat 2020 786 78 0.10
Dog 2019 3352 1866 0.56
Dog 2020 2011 1173 0.58
Other 2019 500 9 0.02
Other 2020 614 18 0.03

Field RTH Rate

This one only counts animals who came in as strays from the field (using subtype ‘FIELD’). These are then split by RTH method between field (using src_outcome_subtype ‘FIELD’), shelter (all other values), and unknowns (missing/null).

Field RTH for cats are unsurprisingly rare. For dogs, rates remain the same across 2019 and 2020, with returns from the shelters being strikingly high.

Species Year Field_Strays RTH_Subtype Field_RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 128 Field Return 3 0.02
Cat 2019 128 Shelter Return 7 0.05
Cat 2019 128 Unknown 3 0.02
Cat 2020 143 Field Return 1 0.01
Cat 2020 143 Shelter Return 15 0.10
Dog 2019 1090 Field Return 266 0.24
Dog 2019 1090 Shelter Return 506 0.46
Dog 2019 1090 Unknown 13 0.01
Dog 2020 763 Field Return 201 0.26
Dog 2020 763 Shelter Return 356 0.47
Dog 2020 763 Unknown 25 0.03

Shelter RTH Rate by Species

Excluding animals coming in from the field. Again, very high shelter RTO rates.

Species Year OTC_Strays Shelter_RTH RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 837 71 0.08
Cat 2020 643 62 0.10
Dog 2019 2262 1081 0.48
Dog 2020 1248 591 0.47
Other 2019 153 3 0.02
Other 2020 91 1 0.01

RTH Over Time

These three time series show the RTH rate per month, to show whether there were times with particularly high or low rates as well as the overall trajectory.

Overall RTH

Steadily, impressively high.

Field RTH (Dogs)

This is the same figure, but only counting field strays, and showing only dogs due to cats’ low numbers. The different lines split the rate of return by Field RTH or in-shelter RTH. RTH dogs with missing subtypes were included in the Shelter category.

Interesting pattern around when the pandemic first hit with two months of peak shelter returns and low field returns, which have since then balanced again.

Shelter RTH

This figure only counts strays who did not come from the field. Steadily high.

Stray Intakes

This section shows the number of stray intakes over time, as well as the breakdown of strays by field/shelter intake.

Stray Intakes by Month

Stray Intake Subtypes

Length of Stay - RTH vs. Outher Outcomes

This could be another useful metrics to reflect the benefits of RTH over other outcome types. It takes into account three components:

  1. The number of stray intakes with RTH outcome.
  2. The daily cost of care.
  3. The average difference in length of stay (in days) between strays with RTH outcomes and all other strays. This is shown in the table below – roughly 9 days for dogs and 6 for cats.

There were 1866 strays who got RTH in 2019 and 1173 in 2020. Assuming 30$ cost of daily care per dog, and given the length-of-stay differences, We can estimate that return-to-homes saved Denver Animal Shelter \(1866*30*12=\$671,760\) in 2019 and \(1173*12*30=\$422,280\) in 2020.

Of course, that is a pretty simplistic calculation. This can be made more nuanced by differentiating field/shelter returns and incorporating the costs associated with them, if relevant.

Species Outcome Count Average_Length_Of_Stay
Cat Other Outcomes 1161 14.11
Cat RTO 162 3.43
Dog Other Outcomes 1838 14.02
Dog RTO 3039 1.80

Supporting Data

Stray Intake and RTH By Found ZIP

The following maps show stray intake and RTH rate by ZIP codes to highlight geographical patterns. The first and second tab are similar to previous metrics; the third tab, RTH Gap, shows the number of strays who were not returned home per ZIP code.

This uses data from 2019 to 2021 that was received as part of working on the microchip section. Many animals were removed having the shetler’s address at 80223, but no constantly recurring addresses came up for 80219, which seems way to high compared to other areas.

Stray Intake

RTH Rate

The one ZIP code further from Tuscon stands out – other than that, most areas are roughly similar.

RTH Gap

This combines the other two tabs to highlight where most additional RTH potential exists. As the RTH rate is uniformly high across the city, the areas with more stray intakes stand out.

RTH Method

I noted you have an ‘Office’ vs ‘Email’ values for outcome subtypes for RTH, so here is the breakdown of these subtypes (excluding field).

Year Outcome_Subtype N
2019 Office 1425
2019 Email 231
2019 Null 16
2019 Shelter 7
2020 Office 832
2020 Email 201
2020 Null 27

Microchip Analysis

How many animals come in with a microchip?

The following table breaks it down by years. The percentages seem to be pretty similar across all three years.

IntakeYear Microchip Count Ratio
2019 No 2506 61.7%
2019 Unknown 587 14.5%
2019 Yes 966 23.8%
2020 No 1696 63.2%
2020 Unknown 377 14%
2020 Yes 611 22.8%
2021 No 1506 63.9%
2021 Unknown 292 12.4%
2021 Yes 557 23.7%

RTH Rate with/out a microchip

This table only counts animals with intake type of stray, since ‘STRAY TAGS’ animals are likely to have been RTH regardless of microchip status – and when looking at them separately, their rates are over 70% RTH for all chip statuses, all years. This comparison is stronger after also making sure animals compared are similar on other characteristics, such as intake condition and age.

Generally, across all stray intakes there is a large difference across all three years, roughly 75% for chipped animals vs 35% without ones. However, this difference comes mostly from animals with OTC / Drop Box subtypes, whereas field intakes feature little to no difference, and NULL subtypes have almost 0 RTHs for both chip or no chip animals.

The different tabs show these difference facets of the data – it is worth talking through the way these subtypes are used.

Overall

Across all three years, animals with a microchip are more than twice as likely to be reunited than those with a no/unknown status, with roughly 75% RTH rate compared to 35% rate.

Microchip Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
No 5367 1890 35%
Unknown 1062 324 31%
Yes 943 704 75%
Year by Year

This difference is consistent across all three years - roughly 35% RTH Rate compared to RTH Rate 75%.

IntakeYear Microchip Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
2019 No 2372 839 35%
2019 Unknown 491 161 33%
2019 Yes 482 357 74%
2020 No 1575 538 34%
2020 Unknown 311 89 29%
2020 Yes 259 194 75%
2021 No 1420 513 36%
2021 Unknown 260 74 28%
2021 Yes 202 153 76%
Field Intakes

Interestingly, for field intakes the difference seems fairly insignificant, and it 2021, it was actually non-existent - 72% for animals that came with and without chips. Does that make sense to you?

IntakeYear Microchip Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
2019 No 482 319 66%
2019 Unknown 232 100 43%
2019 Yes 107 88 82%
2020 No 334 231 69%
2020 Unknown 195 63 32%
2020 Yes 71 53 75%
2021 No 246 176 72%
2021 Unknown 149 44 30%
2021 Yes 61 44 72%
OTC Intakes

This includes OTC and Drop Box intakes, and the big difference in RTH rates seen across the years stands out here.

IntakeYear Microchip Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
2019 No 1242 506 41%
2019 Unknown 246 58 24%
2019 Yes 369 267 72%
2020 No 579 293 51%
2020 Unknown 115 26 23%
2020 Yes 184 139 76%
2021 No 605 309 51%
2021 Unknown 102 28 27%
2021 Yes 140 109 78%

Microchip Prevalence by ZIP code

This section shows the microchip rate (% of animals who came in with a chip) from each ZIP code.

Overview

Smaller ZIP codes are all over the place, while larger ones are around 25-30%. I removed animals with crossing of the shelter address, but did not see an apparent reason for why 80219 has so many more intakes than others. We can also plot the intakes by Census tracts using their crossing address so we get a more granular map if that is of interest.

Map - Chip Rate

the following map shows the proportion of animals who came with a chip from each ZIP code.

Map - Chip Gap

The following map shows the number of strays that came in without a microchip from each ZIP code. This is largely dominated by 80219’s high stray intake at the moment, followed by 223 and 239.

Data Notes

  1. Frequently missing values:

    • 1891 dogs had no ZIP code listed.

  2. Intake subtype has 10 values assigned to less than 10 animals, could be removed to simplify.

  3. Outcome subtype - the presence of ways to indicate how a return was achieved stands out. Here too there are multiple values that are rarely in use.